LMFAO, Thom@s. I really enjoyed that. I played football (soccer, here) in high school and part of college, but I guess it's a bit different in a school environment than in the real world. As for the thread title, "thoughts" is a bit too complimentary, isn't it?

Eventhough it took years of research, but it is now a proven fact that pro footballers do have a functioning brain.

What appears as "intellectually challenged" to most of us is the result of both: years of hard training focusing only on the coordination of the lower limbs, and especially the repeated headings which have proven to be a disastrous effect on the various brain departments.

Assistance is provided by socially inclined persons called "player managers".

Belgian FA records show one first league player who actually was also a bank branch manager in modern times. (authentic)

Iakobos: LOL; sometimes it's hard for me to know if you guys are being sarcastic or serious, based on your use if English (I complement you), but I think your reply was sarcastic. No offense meant; I speak some French also, but I could not exist on this site if I had to speak anything other than English. Just to let you know, I was a goalkeeper for 6 years; this may account for some of my brain damage. That said, it is nice to have the referees give you the benefit of the doubt when coming out to parry a corner kick (knee up, elbows out).

Mind you, on the subject of footballers stupidity, Spanish coach Luis Arragones refusal to condemn the appalling racist chanting at last night's game with England shows that it is isn't always amusing. Lord knows England fans are hardly angels, but we haven't witnessed the kind of scenes we saw last night in 20 years here.

Research was recently carried out to discover why a mans penis was shaped the way it was. The university of California spent 12 months and half a million dollars to come (no pun intended) to the conclusion that a mans penis was shaped the way it was to give women brilliant orgasms. The University of Manchester spent around £100,000 and three months to come up with similar conclusions. A top international footballer spent a fiver and 10 minutes to come up with the conclusion that his willy was shaped the way it was to stop his hand flying off at high speed.

...see how expensive academic research can be ridiculously useless when confronted with primitive logic and common sense.
In the same vein, it is also proven that since field players cannot play the ball with their hands they tend to build up a sizeable amount of frustration, which understandably translates into an excessive handwork between matches and trainings.

This does not hold for goalkeepers of course...except on the hopefully few occasions where they did not touch one.